some friends, some lovers,
some just…names, none  
dropped from the sky like flies  
they vanished, some before my eyes
mostly, though, my ears heard of their passing  
“so and so…before their time”  
but tabulated ticking is not the province  
of the silenced, now in unseen passage  
it is our ears that hear those clocks  
and decide if they beat long enough  
and by what measure?  
some friends, some lovers,
some names, we heard a time or two  
or saw in print a final time  
before we rolled the paper  
to swat another one or two  
from the buzzing air